Noob from PNW, Seattle area

Hi folks,

Just bought a newer version Convoy L6 with XP70.2, and straight away modified the driver board with a stacked “000” resistor for a little boost. Will be modding the side switch to be lit as well thanks to the tutorials on this forum.
I’m new to flash lights in general.

A little background, I’m new to flashlights but not new to playing with electronics. I have built several kit tube headphone amplifiers, as well as make headphone cables, audio interconnects, and dabbled a bit in RC’s as a hobby. For RC’s I make my own battery backs using individual niMh cells.

I first took interest in the flashlights lately due to Matt Smith’s video that I saw recently, which peaked my curiosity (hence the Convoy L6 mod). I was just looking for a good flashlight as I do a bit of outdoors activities and fishing. In the winter I do a bit of squidding with a 500W LED Flood lamp. Always looking at ways to improve and get more light out of my setup. This brought me to this great forum. I’m a tinkerer so never leave much “stock” :slight_smile: So this forum seems perfect for me.

Hope to learn a lot more and if possible contribute.

Welcome, always nice to see another member from the PNW.

Thanks for signing up, YogibearAl!

Welcome. I think you’ll love it here.
I have an L6 on the way. I’m gonna do some mods on it also.
It’s a great light to modify, and this is a great forum to learn from.

Welcome, welcome. Resistor mods aren’t noobish. Seems more from around our area are joining recently :beer:

Welcome aboard!

We need all the light we can get here in the PNW!

But the good news is we're getting less dark every day now. Waitaminute, That could be a bad thing for flashlight lovers.

Just another quick question, I’ve seen some posts in the forum where we are supposed to ask for discount codes for specific items, however I never got a reply from the original OP in private message for a code when I request one. Am I doing something wrong or is there some grace period on this forum for noobs that prevent them from sending me discount codes? Just curious.

Thanks,
Al

Welcome! I spent about 18 months near Vancover, WA and I can see why you’d be into lighting…

I don’t think there is a waiting period… it has more to do with who the OP is. Freeme, m4dm4x, and others are typically pretty busy or on the other side of the world. They usually respond eventually. In case you haven’t bought a lot from the Chinese (Aliexpress, Banggood, Fasttech, Gearbest, etc), expect a lot of waiting for the items to arrive after placing your order. Lots of waiting around here, but none of it is official policy, just how things work. m4dm4x has a site where he keeps a lot of the codes: https://m4dm4x.com/

You can sign up for an account, log in, and see all the codes he posts there.

Welcome BLF!!!

Thanks F0xx. Yeah I’ve bought plenty of items from the Chinese sites. I’ve got a response back just today so all is good. Just needed to set my expectations correctly. :slight_smile:

Yeah, in the Seattle area, we have gotten through the worst of it as the lighted part of the day is just starting to get longer. In December my kids go to school in the dark and comes home shortly before it gets dark. :slight_smile:

This forum has been an eye opener and a wallet drainer. I’ve learned a bunch and I wonder how many people are like me buying 6 flashlights, + accessories, + modding supplies shortly after joining…… :laughing:

.
What discount were you trying to get ? :question: And Welcome to BLF :smiley:

Just some group buy codes for Astrolux and Sofrin products. I already have some Convoys. like experiencing things myself. :wink: different drivers, batteries, LED’s, formats. Figuring out what I like and seeing what mods can be done.

I know of at least discount organizer who sends the codes by email. I was confused for a day or two, then remembered I gave him the email address I use for mailing lists and don’t check often. If this is relevant, don’t forget to check your spam folder.

I’m your neighbor about 160 miles to the south. I never thought I’d get hooked on this hobby, bur it’s all good.

I’d say start slow, but I’d be a hypocrite if I did…

Most of my first mods were trying to update old Maglites (the best one of those I did was turning a 2AA Minimag into a 1 cell triple)… Since then I’ve mostly done driver and emitter swaps to get what I want (Anduril, 4k-5k tint and high CRI) in lights where I liked the form factor. These later mods have been more satisfying to me because they are quicker (quicker than shortening Maglite tubes and making heatsinks) and because they get me a better final product than many of the ones I did originally. Nowadays I have standardized on Anduril UI unless it is something I am putting together for someone else. It is great when all of your lights work in basically the exact same way.

My recommendation for your wallet is to figure out what you like (the expensive bit) then focus\specialize in that. Collecting is the ultimate money destroyer, so stay away from that pit if you care to save the wallet. No matter how much it seems to be the case, you never actually need “one of each”… just ask my wife (looking at you Emisar, FireFlies E07, FW3A)